With Jane’s retirement I have been taking every opportunity to do things together, such as go out for coffee or breakfast of a morning. Like this morning. Which was naturally paired with a trip down to the Mission District branch of Bank of the West. But we dawdled. The morning went on its own way, exhausting itself in the process. Which meant that in the end I headed for the bank, and Jane wandered up a nearby hill with our dog.
What is more urban than a subway? Yes, it is terribly convenient to hurtle underground for four minutes and surface a mile and a half away. But the experience, if not downright stressful, does verge on overload. Lots of noise. And, yes, the ever present specter of COVID-19, which keeps one near the doors. And that city dweller’s wariness. Who are these people? That one in particular. And so on. But, if viewed from a necessarily different perspective, it’s only one stop. Into the BART car, then out at the next station.
The electric door slides back like a theater curtain, revealing a very different scene. In the crowded and small public square above the station the sidewalk is lined on both sides with people hawking goods. Shrink-wrapped packages of Irish Spring, 10 virgin bars for sale. Piles of this and other toiletries, such as toothpaste and toothbrushes, neatly stacked on the concrete. Where do they get the stuff, one cannot help but ask. There has been much criticism of people shoplifting in San Francisco. Walgreens and other drug chains have closed several stores. But there is nothing subtle about 10 bars of soap. Nothing one slips in a pocket or under a jacket. I don’t know where the stuff comes from. That is the simplest answer.
There is lots of noise. Someone is playing a boom box. Although doubtless there is a more modern word. Low-fidelity music, people talking, bargaining over goods, a man in a wheelchair wearing a sports jacket, a T-shirt and a Panama hat making his way between the sellers. Excuse me, I say, making way for him. He doesn’t move. I find a way to weave around him. On the periphery of the sellers are people who stand around talking to each other, exchanging money for this and that, and some with a druggie aura about them, some bored, everyone crowded together. Now a woman raises her voice.
“If he doesn’t listen to me, he can fuck himself.”
A man is walking away from someone or something. I have barely made it to the traffic light, and he still going on about whatever it is. I cross Mission Street then 24th St. And just up ahead is Bank of the West. There is a bus stop to my left. Or there was. The bus shelter has been taken over at one end by two or three homeless people. They have leaned open umbrellas and folding chairs against each other, probably tied them together, then added additional infrastructure which, partially covered with a tarp, creates a shelter from the wind. But nothing like privacy. This is one of the busiest intersections in one of the most crowded parts of San Francisco. On the other side of their shelter, women are selling flowers in real and very authentic stalls, others selling various San Francisco souvenirs and knickknacks. Go Warriors!
I have the feeling that society has broken down or I have been journeying through the third and fourth canto of Dante’s Inferno. And it’s barely 11 AM. And I haven’t made it to the bank.
But seconds later, I am at the bank door and staring into a very darkened space. Branch temporally closed, reads the sign. This adds to my general sense of dystopia. In front of the door there is an old woman in a wheelchair. Behind her stands a man who is holding the handles. The Bush Street branch is open, he tells me. How do we get there? Bus?
Because I am vulnerable and cautious, I take great pains to appear engaged while assessing the situation. It’s got to be safe enough. Get off at the Montgomery Street station, I tell him, urging him aboard BART. I cross Mission and 24th St. And damned if we don’t meet up at the BART elevator.
“She doesn’t even have footrests,” the man tells me. He is Hispanic, she a white lady with wild hair who looks about 20 years his senior. He is speaking of the woman’s wheelchair, but he is speaking of her in the third person invisible. Back at the bank, I had assumed that he was her caregiver.
“Shut up,” he tells her. ”You are the only reason we have to go to the bank.”
He turns to me. “You know that Hobart building?”
I tell him that I do. I press the elevator button again. Nothing is happening. Nothing has been happening for a long time.
“Well my brother-in-law was working in that building, and they had the elevator shaft open. All the way open from top to bottom.”
I am reminded in a scene from Annie Hall with Woody Allen being driven to the airport by Annie’s borderline, possibly suicidal brother. The windshield wipers are flicking in back-and-forth rhythm, in a way that foretells head-on collision. I have waited too long for the elevator. I push the intercom and the BART agent downstairs tells me that I have pushed the wrong button. When the door is finally open, the disturbing man and his charge or wife are gone. I am gone too.